


for all hearts torn

by stonecarved (figure8)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Road Trips, ao3 also doesn't have a tag for nicky's well needed journey of repentance, ao3 does not have a tag for pilgrimage!!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26122834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/stonecarved
Summary: “I was thinking,” Yusuf says, “Of taking a journey southwards.”Nicolò raises his eyes from the cutting board. His fingers are stained with sugar from the figs he’s been peeling; Yusuf is eyeing his hands knowingly. Something twists, low in Nicolò’s gut.“They say Sevilla is lovely in the summer,” he nods.“Further south,” Yusuf says cautiously. “Then east.”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 48
Kudos: 431





	for all hearts torn

**Author's Note:**

> I understand the appeal of long, drawn-out slow burn for these two. I might try my hand at it too, eventually. But I am quite fond of the idea that there was an immediate, gut-wrenching magnetism that they first understood as bloodlust and then simply lust, which quickly developed into possessiveness— this man is mine and I am his because we are the same. It's easy to extrapolate _love_ forming from there. I am particularly interested in Nicky's guilt and eventual redemption in _this_ context, where Joe forgives him much earlier than he forgives himself, because it's easier for him to see Nicky as a human being distinct from the forces at play in the invasion and conquest of the Levant, once they have traveled together and he has the occasion to observe him outside of battle; whereas Nicky metaphorically is still in Jerusalem, cannot dissociate his responsibility in the massacre from his sense of self. All this to say! This is a story about searching for redemption. This is a story about violence, too, and the ethical implications of killing in the name of justice. It is only in the most literal sense about the journey to Mecca— as such I have kept much of the theological and spiritual aspects of the pilgrimage blurry. My understanding of Catholicism is quite... distant, but I have attempted here to write about Islam through the eyes of a Western Christian— which I am not. The misreading of certain rituals and the clumsy associations of biblical narratives with Islamic concepts is purposeful. 
> 
> This is an embarrassingly lengthy author's note for a fic that is not going to be That Long, ha, but I thought some context was necessary here! If the first few paragraphs of chapter 1 sound familiar, it's because at its inception this was a tumblr ficlet for the prompt _"The question hangs heavy in the space between them."_ that ran VERY far away from me. 
> 
> This is set a handful of years after the sack of Jerusalem. Al-Andalus seems to me like the ideal place for a North-African Muslim man and a European Christian to shack up together on the down low in the 12th century, so we set our scene in Toledo!

_Oh Kaaba, refuge for all hearts torn_

_between a passion that calls and love that answers._

_You called this sinner, who returns to you_

_here I am, and don’t listen to the spy’s words._

_Let me travel and worship there, no excuses!_

_My heart is the gift, my tears the stone._

— al-A’ma al-Tutili,  _Water-Fire Muwashshah_

  
  
  
  


The question hangs heavy in the space between them. Yusuf reaches for him before Nicolò can answer, smoothes the crease above his eyebrows with two soothing fingers. His touch is gentle in a way that makes Nicolò’s stomach turn on itself. Still after all this time he catches himself thinking he does not deserve it. It was easier at the beginning, when Yusuf was hungry for him. When it had been about _fucking,_ about satiating an undescribable urge. When all Nicolò had to do was fall to his knees and serve, although even then he remembers feeling dishonest and selfish. What kind of penance was that, if he enjoyed it so much? It is harder now that contact is aimless although always meaningful.

_Hasn’t it been long enough, my love?_

No, Nicolò thinks fiercely. A century could pass and it would not be enough. A century could pass and Nicolò’s hands would still burn around the hilt of a sword. He looks down at the offensive piece of metal now, lips pursed in reflexive defensiveness.

“In pursuit of goodness, Nicolò, there is no dishonor in taking up the blade.” Yusuf traces a word on the inside of his forearm, the round strokes warm on Nicolò’s skin. “ _Al-jihad bi amwalikum wa anfusikum_ ,” he recites softly. “We must strive with our wealth and our souls in the path of God. We have something nobody else has, my heart. This endless life is our wealth.”

“I am scared of my own hands,” Nicolò admits. “Sometimes it feels as if there will never be enough water in the world to wash away the blood.”

He sees it, the pathway Yusuf delineates with his words. Like Michael, archangel and taxiarch, he could put his sword in the service of the weak and the defenseless in the name of God. He should. A war truly holy— but at the single thought of it he chokes, remembers flames licking the walls of the synagogue in Jerusalem, his own blood-stained knees, and the screaming pleas of children.

It is not as if he has taken a formal vow of peace. Crossing the Sinai they had encountered brigands with knives held between their teeth; Yusuf had taken an arrow to the chest there, and Nicolò’s vision had been flooded red with rage more than worry. In immediate protection wielding a weapon still feels to his body as natural as breathing, and that is what terrifies him. The comforting weight of his longsword, the strain on his arms as he raises it above his head to bring it down; in these moments he is nothing but violence, and when they pass he is left trembling and disbelieving. Only Yusuf can ground him, and Yusuf should not _have to_ ground him— Yusuf who should have left him in the dirt to die a thousand deaths but instead kneeled and lifted him off the ground when Nicolò’s injuries were still gaping. Yusuf whose heart is wider than the Aegean sea, who has room inside his ribcage for the entire world, who believes firmly God exists in every single parcel of the universe and as such sees in everything the potential for love. Even in Nicolò’s wretched soul. Before Nicolò even dared beg for redemption, Yusuf rode by his side in tight-lipped silence. Wounded in places untouched by the sun, wounded in ways unwordable, and still— he had not been Nicolò’s friend back then but he had been his companion, and that alone was proof of an immense capacity for mercy. And then— and then he had _loved—_ he loves Nicolò _now,_ he loves him _still—_

“You are too afraid of yourself to be a danger to others,” Yusuf murmurs, cupping his face. He goes to kiss Nicolò’s eyelids but Nicolò turns his face. It hurts a little to refuse him. It would hurt more to hide from him.

“No,” he shakes his head. “It is in fear that men are at their worst.”

  
  


*

He wakes from nightmares often still. There are two women in his dreams, battle-hungry, faster than arrows on their horses. They cut their way through seas of men and emerge blood-bathed, grinning and happy. He knows Yusuf sees them too, albeit not quite the same. They do not seem to share the specifics of these visions— Yusuf says his nights are filled with mundane tasks. Hunting, cooking, washing clothes, sharpening blades. _Loving._ Dying, too. He thinks the women are like them, that they exist outside of the realm of slumber and that he and Nicolò are meant to join them. Nicolò does not like to think of what it would mean, if it were true. He knows Yusuf only ever offered him this truce because he thought there was nobody else in the entire world that would ever understand him.

He dreams of war, too. War real, war lived. He sees himself board the ship in Genoa, touches wood under his palms as if transported through time and startles awake in a gasp, panting. Yusuf turns to him disoriented and sleep-rough, asks him what’s wrong in a mumbled language Nicolò does not speak. During the day he talks in Andalusi, which Nicolò understands now almost entirely; but in the space between night and dawn Yusuf is his old self, body operating by rote. When Nicolò closes his eyes he is his old self too, knees aching against cold cobblestone as he prays, knees aching against cold cobblestone as he sins. He remembers emaciated men in chainmail. He remembers thinking _damn them all to hell, I want to go home,_ and then crossing himself. He remembers the amber eyes of the first boy he killed, days before Yusuf’s blade had put an end to the siege for Nicolò— had turned the war into a duel.

He does not tell Yusuf about these dreams.

*

“I was thinking,” Yusuf says, “Of taking a journey southwards.”

Nicolò raises his eyes from the cutting board. His fingers are stained with sugar from the figs he’s been peeling; Yusuf is eyeing his hands knowingly. Something twists, low in Nicolò’s gut.

“They say Sevilla is lovely in the summer,” he nods.

“Further south,” Yusuf says cautiously. “Then east.”

Nicolò stills. “How far?” he asks. And then, voice smaller: “With me?”

Yusuf’s gaze is tentative as he answers. “I’m hoping, yes.” He’s toying with the hem of his tunic. “Mecca,” he says finally.

Nicolò knows about the pilgrimage. On a cold night in the mountains in Egypt Yusuf had cried over the campfire, when they finally had discussed their first deaths.

 _I think I called for my mother,_ Yusuf had confessed in the quiet. No birds overhead, only the crackling of the fire. _I remember thinking that she would be so upset, that I did not make the journey to the Kaaba when I should have, and then went and got myself killed._

“People talk, on the way to the masjid. You know how rumors travel.”

“I do,” Nicolò says. The months that followed the sack of Jerusalem had been filled with stories— some beyond the scope of reality, and some below. But he knows what Yusuf is getting at. All rumors are deformations: at their core resides a seed of truth.

“Last year’s caravan from Sabtah never made it,” Yusuf says.

Nicolò understands, then. He thinks of the Archangel again, the image blinding in its clarity. What a fool he had been to imagine _himself_ winged.

“You want to make sure the next one will,” he says. Yusuf holds his gaze and nods.

“I want you to come with me,” he says. “I want us to do this together.”

 _I will never be able to keep him from the road,_ Nicolò realizes then. _He will always answer the call of the dispossessed._ He tastes something mournful on the roof of his mouth. The mere thought of Yusuf crossing the Holy Land again fills him with the kind of dread that is ice in the veins, paralytic. When they had finally left Mount Sinai behind them, he had sworn to himself he would never return. _Jesus Christ, my Lord, your birthplace has chewed me up and swallowed me and then spat me back out again._

Yusuf is still staring, expectant. Nicolò knows in that moment that he truly means it. Together, I want us to do this together. Something good. Something sacred.

 _This is why you love him,_ a voice murmurs inside his head. _This is why you will die for him. This is why you will die for him as many times as you have to._

“Yes,” he hears himself say. “I will go with you to Mecca.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, I would love to hear your thoughts! Kudos and comments keep the author brain well fed ❤️  
> I really try to reply to most comments, especially substantial ones; it might just take me a bit of time because I have been SWAMPED and sometimes faced with the choice between writing or replying to stuff, I go with the assumption people will appreciate an update more T___T  
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/junmotions) and [tumblr](http://lgbtmazight.tumblr.com), if you're so inclined. See you soon!


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